Systems and methods for configuring a life insurance system

ABSTRACT

Methods and systems for configuring non-contemporaneous analytics. An application is received from a consumer for a life insurance policy. An indication is sent to the consumer agreeing to activate the life insurance policy upon receipt of a notification of an activation trigger. An activation trigger is received and the policy is activated.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims priority to and is a continuation of U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 14/924,382, filed Oct. 27, 2015, which claimspriority to U.S. Patent Application No. 62/069,172, filed Oct. 27, 2014which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

As an individual's financial risks and responsibilities increase throughfamily formation and other events, individuals often purchase additionallife insurance at those moments to protect against the risk of theindividual's premature death. However, life insurance policies purchasedlater in a person's life are often more expensive than life insurancepolicies purchased earlier in a person's life.

Accordingly, there is an unmet need to facilitate the ability forconsumers to acquire reduced life insurance premiums for policies thatare initiated later in a person's life.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

So that those having ordinary skill in the art, to which the presentdisclosure pertains, will more readily understand how to employ thenovel system and methods of the present disclosure, certain illustratedembodiments thereof will be described in detail herein-below withreference to the drawings, wherein:

FIG. 1 is a flowchart depicting illustrative operation of a lifeinsurance reservation system;

FIG. 2 depicts exemplary embodiments of a computing device that may beutilized in conjunction with FIG. 1 ;

A component or a feature that is common to more than one drawing isindicated with the same reference number in each of the drawings.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF CERTAIN EMBODIMENTS

The present disclosure is directed to exemplary embodiments of a lifeinsurance reservation system. It is to be appreciated the subjectdisclosure is described below more fully with reference to theaccompanying drawings, in which illustrated embodiments of the presentdisclosure are shown. The present disclosure is not limited in any wayto the illustrated embodiments as the illustrated embodiments describedbelow are merely exemplary of the disclosure, which can be embodied invarious forms, as appreciated by one skilled in the art. Therefore, itis to be understood that any structural and functional details disclosedherein are not to be interpreted as limiting, but merely as a basis forthe claims and as a representative for teaching one skilled in the artto variously employ the present disclosure. Furthermore, the terms andphrases used herein are not intended to be limiting but rather toprovide an understandable description of the disclosure.

Unless defined otherwise, all technical and scientific terms used hereinhave the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skill inthe art to which this disclosure belongs. Although any methods andmaterials similar or equivalent to those described herein can also beused in the practice or testing of the present disclosure, exemplarymethods and materials are now described.

It must be noted that as used herein and in the appended claims, thesingular forms “a”, “an,” and “the” include plural referents unless thecontext clearly dictates otherwise. Thus, for example, reference to “astimulus” includes a plurality of such stimuli and reference to “thesignal” includes reference to one or more signals and equivalentsthereof as known to those skilled in the art, and so forth.

It is to be appreciated that certain embodiments of this disclosure asdiscussed below are a software algorithm, program or code residing oncomputer useable medium having control logic for enabling execution on amachine having a computer processor. The machine typically includesmemory storage configured to provide output from execution of thecomputer algorithm or program. As used herein, the term “software” ismeant to be synonymous with any code or program that can be in aprocessor of a host computer, regardless of whether the implementationis in hardware, firmware or as a software computer product available ona disc, a memory storage device, or for download from a remote machine.The embodiments described herein include such software to implement theequations, relationships and algorithms described above. One skilled inthe art will appreciate further features and advantages of thedisclosure based on the above-described embodiments. Accordingly,practicing this disclosure is not to be limited by what has beenparticularly shown and described, except as indicated by the appendedclaims. Further, although at least one series of steps are presented asan exemplary method of practicing one or more embodiments describedherein, it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that thesteps identified may be practiced in any order that is practicable,including without limitation the omission of one or more steps.

The communications described and referenced herein, including withoutlimitation the accompanying figures and drawings, may utilize and/ortraverse networks that may include a local area network (LAN), a widearea network (WAN), a personal area network (PAN), and/or combinationsthereof. Such networking environments are commonplace in offices,enterprise-wide computer networks, intranets, and the Internet. Forinstance, when used in a LAN networking environment, one or more systemsdescribed herein is connected to the LAN through a network interface oradapter (not shown). When used in a WAN networking environment, thecomputing system environment typically includes a modem or other meansfor establishing communications over the WAN, such as the Internet. Themodem, which may be internal or external, may be connected to a systembus via a user input interface, or via another appropriate mechanism. Ina networked environment, program modules depicted relative to one ormore systems described herein, or portions thereof, may be stored in aremote memory storage device such as storage medium. Communication links75 may comprise either wired or wireless links.

Referring to FIG. 1 , exemplary operation of a process 100 of one ormore systems described herein will now be described for illustrativepurposes. Starting at step 101, a company, such as via one or moreservers, receives an indication that a consumer desires to reserve afuture life insurance policy. This indication may arrive in the form ofan application from the consumer, and in such situations the applicationmay be generated by the consumer via the user's laptop, desktop, mobilephone, wearable electronic device, audio communications therewith (e.g.,a phone call), and/or any means for communicating a consumer's possibleinterest in purchasing a product/service as would be recognized by thoseskilled in the art. It should be noted that the term consumer may referto any entity that would like to purchase insurance. For instance, aconsumer may be an individual or more than one individual. A consumermay be a legal entity, such as a corporation or institution, or a groupof such entities. Moreover, the consumer does not necessarily have to bethe insured. For instance, a consumer may reserve insurance on behalf ofan insured.

Subsequently, the consumer's eligibility is determined (step 102). Thisdetermination may be based on the algorithms and/or models that havebeen previously generated, are generated contemporaneously with therequest, and/or are generated subsequent to receiving an application.The determination may additionally and/or alternatively be based on dataextracted from data sources that relate to financial, health/medical,and/or actuarial information related to one or more other consumers.

It is contemplated herein that the determination may result in anapproved/denied dichotomous response and/or the determination may resultin one or more grading factors. For example, the determination mayinclude generating a risk assessment for the consumer, and the futurelife insurance policy's terms may be based at least in part on this riskassessment.

It is further contemplated herein that the determination may result in agrading factor for a specific time interval and/or time interval. Forexample, a consumer may receive a 7.8 risk assessment (out of ten) forthe time range of 5 years to 10 years (i.e., if the future lifeinsurance policy is eligible to be activated in 5 to 10 years), and a6.4 risk assessment (out of ten) for the time range of 10 years to 15years (i.e., if the future life insurance policy is eligible to beactivated in 10 to 15 years), and/or a 4.8 risk assessment (out of ten)for the time range of 15 or more years (i.e., if the future lifeinsurance policy is eligible to be activated in 15 or more years fromnow). Although specific risk assessment numbers (i.e., 7.8, 6.4, and4.8), risk assessment ranges (i.e., “out of ten”), and time intervals(i.e., 5 to 10 years and 10 to 15 years and 15 or more years) aredescribed in this example for illustrative purposes, it is contemplatedherein that other risk assessment numbers, risk assessment ranges,and/or time intervals may be utilized in the practice of one or moreembodiments described herein. For instance, the risk assessment may be alinear risk assessment or an exponential risk assessment.

Via step 103, the consumer purchases the right to acquire life insurancein the future and said purchase may constitute and/or include a firstindication that the future life insurance policy will and/or may beactivated in the future, including life insurance that may be only beactivated upon the occurrence of one or more predetermined events, andin step 104, the one or more predetermined events occurs. In oneexample, the predetermined event is a change to the consumer's age(e.g., turns over 50 years old, over 60 years old, turns over 65 yearsold), a change in the age of a child of the consumer (e.g., turns over18 years old, turns over 21 years old, turns over 25 years old), achange in the consumer's marital status, a change in the consumer'sparental status, a change in the consumer's military affiliation, achange in the consumer's employment status, a change in the consumer'shealth, a change in the actuarial table applicable to the consumer, achange in the status of one or more policies, including life insurancepolicies, that are in effect with respect to the consumer, and/orsubstantial purchase (e.g., purchase of a home, vehicle).

Finally, the life insurance policy is issued (step 105), which mayinclude receive one or more premium payments from the consumer (e.g.,monthly payments).

Although this exemplary presentation included an activation trigger(e.g., steps 103 and/or 104) before the life insurance policy could beissued, it is contemplated herein that the both parties may simply agreeto the terms with or without either side providing compensation to theother side to complete the agreement.

It should also be noted that upon occurrence of the event, thenotification to insurer of the activation trigger may take variousalternative forms. For instance, the terms and conditions covering theagreement may be a self-executing smart contract. If the activationtrigger were to occur, the insurer may issue the policy uponnotification that the particular active trigger occurred. In anexemplary self-executing transaction, the notification may include oneor more methods of verifying that one or more activation triggersoccurred. For example, the parties may specify that upon notificationand/or verification from a birth registry database that the purchaserhad a child, the life insurance policy would take effect. In anotherexample, the parties may specify that upon a milestone birthday, thepolicy would take effect provided a search of records did not firstdetermine that the consumer was deceased or dissolved. In a furtherexample, the entities may elect to store the terms of the agreement toprovide future insurance in a virtual ledger. In one example, theentities may use a blockchain of the type used to record Bitcointransactions. The virtual ledger in one example may comprise a pluralityof encoded blocks that represent data related to other insurancereservation transactions that have occurred.

In another example, the notification may occur by the consumer sending anotification (e.g. telephone call, email, postcard, etc.) directly tothe insurance provider or through an intermediary. Upon receipt of thenotification the policy may be activated manually or in an automatedmanner. In another example, the consumer may be able to activate apolicy through logging into a system upon occurrence of the activationevent and actuating a “one-click” operation to activate the policy.

It is contemplated herein that the steps described herein may beperformed in series and/or iteratively, by which it is meant that theconsumer may request a second quote for a future life insurance policyand/or an updated quote for future life insurance policy. This requestfor a second quote and/or an updated quote may occur, for exemplarypurposes only and without limitation, contemporaneously with theoriginal request, subsequent to the calculation of one or more riskfactors associated with the consumer, subsequent to the consumerpurchasing the possibility of enrolling in a future life insurancepolicy, subsequent to the predetermined eligibility event (e.g., theconsumer turning an identified age) occurring, and/or at any pointduring the process(es) described herein.

Referring to FIG. 2 , illustrated therein is an exemplary embodiment ofa computing device as might be used when utilizing the systems andmethods described herein. In one embodiment, computing device 200includes memory 210, a processor 202, an interface device 204 (e.g.,mouse, keyboard, monitor), a network device 206. Memory 210 in oneexample comprises a computer-readable signal-bearing medium. One exampleof a computer-readable signal-bearing medium comprises a recordable datastorage medium, such as a magnetic, optical, biological, and/or atomicdata storage medium. In another example, a computer-readablesignal-bearing medium comprises a modulated carrier signal transmittedover a network coupled with a system, for instance, a telephone network,a local area network (“LAN”), the Internet, and/or a wireless network.In one example, memory 210 includes a series of computer instructionswritten in or implemented with any of a number of programming languages,as will be appreciated by those skilled in the art.

Memory 210 in one example includes RAM 212, hard drive 215, which mayinclude database 216. Database 216 in one example holds information,such as information that relates to users and/or parties interactingwith system.

It is contemplated that one or more of such computing devices 200 may beutilized to implement the functionality described herein. For example,in the instance of self-executing agreement, as described above, a firstdevice 200 may be used by a consumer to request an insurance policyreservation. A second device 200 may be used by an insurer to accept aninsurance policy reservation and to receive notification of anactivation trigger. One or more third party devices 200 may be used toverify and/or notify the first device and/or the second device of theoccurrence of the activation trigger. In addition, one or more thirdparty devices 200 may be utilized to create a virtual ledger that storesthe terms and conditions of the agreement, between the consumer and theinsurer, for the insurer to provide future insurance. The devices 200may communicate via wireless or wired networks.

The terms “engine” and “module” denote a functional operation that maybe embodied either as a stand-alone component or as an integratedconfiguration of a plurality of subordinate components. Thus, enginesand modules may be implemented as a single engine/module or as aplurality of engine/modules that operate in cooperation with oneanother. Moreover, engines/modules may be implemented as softwareinstructions in memory 310 or separately in any of hardware (e.g.,electronic circuitry), firmware, software, or a combination thereof. Inone embodiment, engines/modules contain instructions for controllingprocessor 302 to execute the methods described herein.

The techniques described herein are exemplary, and should not beconstrued as implying any particular limitation on the presentdisclosure. It should be understood that various alternatives,combinations and modifications could be devised by those skilled in theart. For example, steps associated with the processes described hereincan be performed in any order, unless otherwise specified or dictated bythe steps themselves. The present disclosure is intended to embrace allsuch alternatives, modifications and variances that fall within thescope of the appended claims.

The terms “comprises” or “comprising” are to be interpreted asspecifying the presence of the stated features, integers, steps orcomponents, but not precluding the presence of one or more otherfeatures, integers, steps or components or groups thereof.

Although the systems and methods of the subject disclosure have beendescribed with respect to the embodiments disclosed above, those skilledin the art will readily appreciate that changes and modifications may bemade thereto without departing from the spirit and scope of the subjectdisclosure.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method comprising: receiving an indication ofone or more terms of an insurance policy, wherein the one or more termscomprise an activation trigger; generating a blockchain entry comprisinga smart contract, wherein the smart contract comprises the one or moreterms and the blockchain entry is on a cryptocurrency blockchain;receiving an indication of an occurrence of the activation trigger;verifying, using at least one record stored to a database, theoccurrence of the activation trigger; based on verification of theoccurrence of the activation trigger and the blockchain entry, causingactivation of the insurance policy; and issuing, to a user based on theactivation of the insurance policy, the insurance policy.
 2. The methodof claim 1, wherein the activation trigger is associated with at leastone of the user reaching an age, a change in marital status of the user,the user making a purchase, or the user having a child.
 3. The method ofclaim 1, wherein the database comprises a birth registry database. 4.The method of claim 1, wherein the database comprises a death record. 5.The method of claim 1, wherein the cryptocurrency blockchain is abitcoin blockchain.
 6. A method comprising: generating a risk assessmentassociated with insuring a user for future intervals of time;determining, based on the risk assessment, one or more terms of a futureinsurance policy for the user, wherein the one or more terms comprise anactivation trigger; generating a blockchain entry comprising a smartcontract, wherein the smart contract comprises the one or more terms andthe blockchain entry is on a cryptocurrency blockchain; causing, basedon an occurrence of the activation trigger and the blockchain entry,activation of the insurance policy; and issuing, to the user based onthe activation of the insurance policy, the insurance policy.
 7. Themethod of claim 6, wherein the risk assessment comprises a linear riskassessment.
 8. The method of claim 6, wherein the risk assessmentcomprises an exponential risk assessment.
 9. The method of claim 6,wherein the activation trigger is associated with at least one of theuser reaching an age, a change in marital status of the user, the usermaking a purchase, or the user having a child.
 10. The method of claim6, wherein the cryptocurrency blockchain is a bitcoin blockchain. 11.The method of claim 6, wherein the causing activation of the insurancepolicy is based on verifying the occurrence of the activation trigger.12. The method of claim 6, wherein the causing activation of theinsurance policy is based on the activation trigger occurring during atleast one of the future intervals of time.
 13. The method of claim 6,wherein the determining the risk assessment comprises determining a riskof the activation trigger occurring during one or more of the futureintervals of time.
 14. A method comprising: receiving an indication ofan interval of time; determining, based on the interval of time, a riskfactor; generating, based on the risk factor, a smart contractcomprising one or more terms of an insurance policy, wherein the one ormore terms comprise an activation trigger and the smart contract is on acryptocurrency blockchain; causing, based on an occurrence of theactivation trigger, execution of the smart contract; and issuing, to auser based on the execution of the smart contract, the insurance policy.15. The method of claim 14, further comprising determining, based onanother interval of time, another risk factor; wherein the generatingthe smart contract is further based on the another risk factor.
 16. Themethod of claim 14, wherein the causing execution of the smart contractis based on the activation trigger occurring during the interval oftime.
 17. The method of claim 14, wherein the risk factor comprises anumerical value.
 18. The method of claim 14, wherein the activationtrigger is associated with at least one of the user reaching an age, achange in marital status of the user, the user making a purchase, or theuser having a child.
 19. The method of claim 14, wherein thecryptocurrency blockchain is a bitcoin blockchain.
 20. The method ofclaim 14, wherein the causing execution of the smart contract grants auser insurance coverage.